


A Particularly Inconvenienced Crow

by rabbit_hearted



Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, It's soft thirsting and it's crows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:47:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29810025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbit_hearted/pseuds/rabbit_hearted
Summary: Lila had the idea to enlist Lukas’s help in remedying the crow situation for the single and, in her opinion, well-founded reason that Lukas Randall was the most intimidating person she’d ever known.If anyone could inspire a murder of crows to vacate her property, it would be him.
Relationships: Lila Desroses/Lukas "Grumpy Cat" Randall
Comments: 39
Kudos: 48





	A Particularly Inconvenienced Crow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for Dom, who left me the most amazing comment on [Rough Around the Edges](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992121) and inspired me to write Lula again. Dom, thank you for loving my work so well. I would take a bullet for you. I hope you like this weird crow thing. 
> 
> I should probably also state that this was supposed to be a completely different fic, and then I stumbled upon [this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/ki6fnd/oregon_i_accidentally_created_an_army_of_crow/?sort=top) about a person who accidentally created a crow army and the rest was, as they say, history. This will be a two-parter.

**Lila**

Lila felt quite awful about the crows.

She had only meant to feed them once, but crows were, as it turned out, formidable, demanding creatures, and they had a tendency to form attachments. Attachments that involved excessive squawking, and circling, and _swarming_. Needless to say, the neighbors were not pleased.

Lukas was quiet while she recounted the ordeal from start to finish, though she knew that he was gamely resisting the urge to tell her how insane all of this was. It was written all over his face.

“You mobilized a crow army—”

“A murder,” Lila cut in gently.

Lukas blinked. It was more of a twitch, really, as though his face was trying to reset itself. “A what?”

“A murder. A group of crows is called a murder.”

“A murder,” Lukas repeated slowly. “You mobilized a murder.”

Lila reached under her desk to retrieve the Audubon Field Guide she’d checked out from the library when the issue of the crows had become cumbersome. She flipped it open to the page she’d dog-eared and tapped the relevant entry with her index finger. “Apparently it’s called resource guarding. The crows have formed a bond with me because I fed them.”

Lukas leaned against her desk on his forearm, looking a little wan. For a moment, Lila worried he might faint, which, in his defense, would have been reasonable reaction. The whole ordeal was rather shocking.

“Resource guarding,” he echoed flatly.

“Yes.”

His dark gaze flicked over her face restlessly before settling back on the book. “And you need my help to…”

“Well, they can’t stay in my front yard,” Lila replied factually, adjusting her glasses with her thumb. She had the idea to enlist Lukas’s help in remedying the crow situation for the single and, in her opinion, well-founded reason that Lukas Randall was the most intimidating person she’d ever known. If anyone could inspire a murder of crows to vacate her property, it would be him. “The book mentions that crows respond to a strong presence.”

Slowly, Lukas extended to his full height. It was late in the day, and the precinct was quiet with inactivity, offering her the perfect opportunity to ask him for help with her predicament. She’d been trying to find a quiet moment all week, but he was always on patrol, or leaving for patrol, or muttering over paperwork.

“I don’t know anything about crows.”

“Neither do I,” Lila replied.

He scrubbed his hand over his face tiredly. “Then why on earth did you _feed them_?” 

She blinked up at him. “They looked hungry.”

It was probably an inopportune moment to notice that he was quite handsome, with a thick, low-set brow and unforgiving cut of jawline, and a mop of dark hair that parted boyishly in the middle. Lila liked him best when he smiled, even though he only did so sardonically, or at someone else’s expense. The most recent occurrence was when Kym had made a joke about Hermann, and the corner of his mouth had twitched upward just so, like a loose floorboard. It was a shadow of a gesture, unremarkable to anyone else, and she found herself unable to stop thinking about it for the rest of the afternoon.

Lukas rapped his knuckles lightly against her desk, and it was only then that Lila realized he’d been speaking to her.

She shook her head. “Sorry?”

Lukas tilted his head quizzically, brows drawn inward, like he was trying to puzzle her out. “I asked if you wanted me to take a look tonight.” He glanced at the clock above the front door. “My shift ends in ten minutes.”

“Oh.” She was struck with an abrupt wave of panic when she realized that he’d be seeing her house, which was silly, really, being that he would only be in the front yard, and that his sole purpose for even being there was to expel a murder of crows. “Tonight?”

Lukas narrowed his gaze onto her. His eyes were so dark they were nearly reflective, a deep, molten shade of brown that was warm in its utter depth, as though it had been drawn directly from the core of the earth. “Unless you have plans.”

Her so-called _plans_ would have consisted of organizing her pantry and studiously avoiding thinking about him, so this seemed like a favorable alternative. “No.” Lila cleared her throat. “That sounds good.”

“Alright, then.” He turned on his heel to make the short trip back to his desk, and all the while, Lila couldn’t stop thinking about how absurdly pleasant it had felt when he looked at her. Fully and unflinchingly, as though she was something worth noticing.

This really was terribly inconvenient.

**Lukas**

Loathe as he was to admit it, Lukas was no stranger to going to idiotic lengths to impress a girl he had a crush on. This was by far the most idiotic of them all.

“Wait right here.” Lila threw her arm out in front of his chest to still him. “If you come any further, the crows will dive bomb you.”

Her forearm hit his sternum when he nearly stumbled, and he dimly registered that the peacoat she was wearing had tiny, embroidered hearts on it. “ _Dive bomb?_ ” Lukas choked.

The crows in question were perched on the rose trellis, tittering about like little winged, beady-eyed rats. One of them tilted its head to peer more closely at him in a gesture that felt disturbingly human. “They just tried to attack Mrs. Fordyce last week.” Lila turned to the crows, her mouth twisted into a scowl. “And that was _not very nice_ of you, was it?”

The crows were incriminatingly silent.

“I’m going to go get the broom.”

She tossed Lukas a sympathetic look and disappeared inside the house, which was small and tidy and painted a color he presumed was called sea foam, or possibly mint. There was the trellis, which the murder still held court over, and a small wraparound garden blooming with fragrant hibiscuses. Lukas hadn’t even had the chance to ask her _what_ , exactly, she planned to do with said broom. He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he was even here. At Lila Desroses’ house.

Trying to get rid of a crow infestation.

Lukas turned his face up to the sky. “You really are an idiot,” he muttered to himself.

There were more crows than he could count — two dozen, maybe — plus a few more scattered around the front lawn, scraping peckishly at the grass. “What the hell were you even feeding them?” Lukas called out. “Caviar?”

Lila poked her head out of the ajar doorway. “Breadcrumbs.” She pulled her lip between her teeth guiltily. “And apple pie, but only once.”

Lukas kneaded the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb in exasperation. “ _Pie_?”

“It was going to go bad anyway. And they looked so—”

“They are not hungry _,_ Lila. They’re manipulating you.” He waved his palm in the direction of the murder. “They’re stupid birds. They eat — dirt, or worms, or whatever.”

Her head disappeared back into the shadows of the foyer, but not before he could have sworn he heard her mutter something that sounded suspiciously close to an objection. This whole thing felt sort of darkly ironic, being that he’d been trying to figure out how to approach her for months. It figured that she’d end up being the one to start a conversation that didn’t involve coffee or paperwork or something equally mundane, but goddamn _crows._

Just as Lukas was beginning to feel exceptionally stupid shuffling his feet in the cold, Lila skipped down the stone steps, broom in hand. She was holding it over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

“Are you planning on bludgeoning them?” Lukas inquired dryly, one brow arched.

Lila’s eyes widened behind her glasses. The sunset had settled gently in the planes of her face, and she looked pretty and wistful and completely, dreadfully out of his league.

“What? Of course not.”She marched up to the trellis and planted the end of the broom in the dirt. “I was thinking you’d stand behind me, then—”

“No way,” Lukas interjected. He took a half step closer and then froze when one of the crows inclined its neck to caw at him _. “_ You’ll stand behind me.”

“But they don’t like you,” Lila protested. “They won’t hurt _me_. As I was saying, I’ll stand in front of you, then you use the broom to drive them towards the woods.” 

“If you stand in front of me, I could wack you with the broom.” The mere thought of hurting her, even accidentally, made his jaw tense reflexively. “And anyway, they’ll be gone by then.”

Lila spun around to face him, planting her hands on her hips. “What makes you so sure of that?”

The cold had reddened her cheeks and the tip of her nose with flush, and the sight was so arresting that it detailed his train of thought completely. Her rosebud mouth was pinched at the corners in annoyance, bracketed on either side by little crescent-shaped divots. It was completely ridiculous that someone could be so cute in anger, like a feral hamster.

Lukas shook his head. “So sure of what?”

She blowed a gusty sigh through her cheeks. “That the crows will leave so easily. I’ve been trying to get rid of them for weeks.”

Lukas ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth in thought. It was clear that he had insulted her. He’d been told that he would do well to be more sensitive in the way he phrased his observations, but it wasn’t always obvious _how_ to do so, or why what he was saying was even particularly offensive in the first place.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Lila cut in. “You think I’m weak.” A tendril of hair had spooled loose from the bun she’d pulled her hair into, and he found himself itching to tuck it behind her ear. He wanted to know whether her skin felt as soft as it looked.

“No, I don’t,” Lukas replied. He thought that she was sweet, and thoughtful, and so unthinkingly, unfathomably _good_. But never weak. “I think that you’re kind. And I think that _they_ ,” He flicked a dark look over to the crows, “Know that.”

The flush in Lila’s cheeks deepened to the color of a berry tart. She shuffled her weight from her left foot, then her right. “I thought they were just stupid birds,” she replied coyly.

He shrugged. “Stupid birds who really like being fed apple pie.”

“Fine,” Lila huffed. “But for the record, I think that this is a bad idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” When she opened her mouth to reply, he pointedly added, “One that _doesn’t_ put you at risk of me accidentally whacking you with a blunt object.”

Lila handed over the broom and inched away from the trellis to stand behind him. She was near enough that he could feel her exhalation wash over his shoulder.

“Touché.”

The front of his boots were pressed up against the edge of the lawn, just barely toeing the grass. Lukas rolled the broomstick back and forth over his palm. This would be a lot easier if he could just shoot them.

“You’re hesitating,” Lila mused. “Are you scared?”

“No,” he growled. “I’m not _scared_ of some —”

“Stupid birds,” she finished gently.

Lukas blew an exhale through his teeth. “I’m just _thinking_.”

“Right.”

He tilted his head, studying the crows. They studied him right back, and, judging by the sounds they were making, they didn’t seem pleased. “You’re sure I’m not allowed to shoot them?”

Lila had made it quite clear that he was not, under any circumstances, to shoot the crows. Her insistence on this fact had to do with her values around animal welfare, and also the fact that shooting a gun in a residential neighborhood was generally considered frowned-upon behavior. When he countered that the benefit-cost ratio of a few dead crows in exchange for an empty front yard seemed reasonable to him, she merely responded with a glare.

“You already know the answer to that question.”

Lukas took a hesitant step toward the trellis, raising his arm slowly above his head. The crows twitched menacingly. He paused, tossing Lila a sidelong glance. “I think this is a bad idea.”

She shook her head resolutely. “You have to commit. Crows hate indecisiveness.”

“What the hell does that even _mean_ —”

In the end, Lila wouldn’t have to explain. Later, he’d try and fail to remember the ordeal himself — something about memory loss and blunt force trauma to the head — but he supposed that he had to hand it to the crow for at least having the decency to hit him hard enough that he’d forget the most humiliating event of his life.

According to Lila’s account, the crows chose his moment of hesitation to coordinate their attack, swooping down from the trellis to execute a hostile siege of his face. When Lukas came to, he was distantly aware that Lila was shouting his name somewhere in his periphery. He was sprawled out on the lawn like a starfish, flat on his back with a mouthful of fucking crow feathers.

Lila dropped to her knees next to him. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “Lukas, I’m so sorry.”

He blinked blearily up at her. It was completely insane that she would feel the need to apologize, but the probable concussion made this thought difficult to articulate. All he could think about was how pretty she looked, both a completely useless and entirely irrelevant observation. In part because there were far more pressing matters at hand, but also because she always looked pretty. But he thought that she looked especially pretty just then, frowning over him like he was some sort of invalid.

She held a hand up in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three?”

Lila drifted her fingertips over his face as though charting a map, her touch lighter than an exhalation. She was saying something to him, but he registered none of it, completely dumbfounded by the feel of her skin against his, soft and warm and a little bit chapped from the cold. The pads of her thumbs hooked under the hinge his jaw, turning his chin to the left and then the right.

Her mouth screwed up sympathetically. “I was holding up four.”

Lukas let his head fall back against the lawn.

 _God_.

He really was screwed.

**Lila**

She narrowly resisted the urge to gasp when she caught side of his face the next morning. _Narrowly_ being the operative word.

“Lukas,” Lila breathed, bring her palm up over her mouth. “I am so, so—”

“Sorry. Yes, I know,” Lukas replied. He gingerly shrugged his jacket off and folded it over the back of his chair. “You’ve told me as much.”

An eggplant-colored bruise had bloomed over his right eye overnight. It was garish, dotted with tiny red pinpricks that looked like scattered constellations. If Lukas was unapproachable before, this update to his outward appearance didn’t exactly abate the situation. He’d graduated from being standoffish to looking like someone a loan shark would hire.

“You look…” Her mouth flattened as she searched for an appropriate adjective. When it became evident that there was absolutely no optimistic way to spin the situation, she snapped her mouth shut.

“I need coffee,” he muttered, turning toward the kitchen.

Lila trotted down the hallway after him, her skirt swirling around her ankles. “Have you iced it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Lukas turned, blinking down at her. She’d never noticed how small the kitchen was until this precise moment, or perhaps he was just tall. He always had to fold his limbs a little to make a space fit him, shoulders bent forward, spine curved into a parenthesis. He smelled like toothpaste and something spicy.

“It’s not a big deal, Lila.”

“It is a big deal.” Lila blinked rapidly, humiliated when she felt tears stinging the corners of her vision. She’d always been a leaky faucet, practically able to cry on command. “This is all my fault,” she muttered.

“That’s news to me. Were you the crow who dive-bombed my face?”

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t your fault.”

She had no idea why he was appeasing her like this. “But this wouldn’t have happened if—”

“Hey,” Lukas cut in. His tone was very nearly gentle, soft and a little scratchy, like a well-worn sweater. “Lila.”

Cedar and smoke, she realized. That was what he smelled like. Like the remnants of a bonfire. She wondered if that was something they’d figured out how to bottle up, or if he was in the regular practice of traipsing through the woods.

“Lila, look at me.”

She didn’t want to look at him, namely because looking at him had felt so _different_ lately, and also because he had a massive, unsightly bruise on his face that she was indirectly responsible for. When she spoke, her voice was a pathetic little squeak, like the sound a chew toy would make.

“Why?”

“Because you’re upset, and you shouldn’t be.”

Lila reluctantly lifted her gaze from the floor. The look he was giving her was unreadable, that impassive mouth bent into a vague impression of a frown. It was completely maddening, the way his face was somehow both expressive and entirely unreadable. Expressions drifted over his face like clouds, gone before she had the chance to decipher them.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lukas repeated. “Stop saying that, alright?”

Reluctantly, Lila nodded. “I really am sorry about your face,” she murmured.

A lopsided grin twitched at the edges of his lips. “That bad, huh?”

She felt her cheeks flood with heat. “I didn’t mean—”

“Holy shit,” Kym announced, slamming open the kitchen door. The doorknob ricocheted against the opposite wall with what Lila could only assume was enough force to dent it. “What happened to your _face?_ ”

Lukas rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and held them there. “Do you ever do anything quietly?”

“No.” Kym leaned forward on her toes, inspecting Lukas’s injury. “You look like you got in a bar fight—”

“You should see the other guy,” Lukas deadpanned. His expression had shuttered once more, restored of its usual impassivity.

“Does he have a nasty shiner, too?”

“Can you move?” Lukas snapped. “I can’t reach the coffee pot.”

Kym slid to her left, but her gaze was stuck to his black eye like flypaper. “Who’d you piss off?”

“A crow.”

“A _crow_?”

“A particularly inconvenienced crow.”

“Right.” Kym tapped her foot metronomically against the tiled floor, sliding her gaze from Lukas, to Lila, then back again. “So, what really happened?”

“It really was a crow,” Lila sighed, pulling at a loose thread in the hem of her blouse. “I have a … crow problem. Crows, actually. A murder of them.” She watched Lukas stir a spoonful of sugar into his coffee, which was strange, being that he took it black.

Kym huffed an incredulous laugh. “You’re being _serious_?”

Lila nodded.

“If I had it my way,” Lukas muttered, tossing the stirrer into the trash, “That stupid fucking bird would have gotten a bullet in its skull.”

Lauren drifted to a slow stop in front of the threshold to the kitchen, a stack of papers tucked haphazardly in the crook of her elbow. She tilted her head toward Kym, one brow arched in a wordless question.

“You don’t want to know,” Kym replied.

“Great.” Lauren nodded, retreating down the hallway the way she’d come.

With a sigh, Lukas turned away from the counter and held the coffee he’d been preparing out to Lila, as casual as anything. The gesture was so unexpected that it took her brain a few moments to catch up to her mouth.

“Huh?”

Lukas quirked one brow questioningly. “Coffee.” When Lila made no move to take the mug from him, he added, somewhat accusatorially, “You look like you haven’t slept.”

She hadn’t. She’d been up worrying herself sick about him. But she hadn’t expected Lukas, of all people, to recognize that, much less go out of his way to fix her a cup of coffee. He wasn’t exactly known for his altruism.

“T-thanks,” she stuttered, gingerly plucking the handle from his grasp.

Kym leaned back on her elbows, her gaze sliding fitfully between them. A knowing grin bloomed over her face slowly. “Crows, huh?”

“Shut up,” Lukas spat. It was almost remarkable how quickly his mood had devolved. He stalked out of the room without further preamble, letting the door slam shut behind him.

For a long moment, the kitchen was silent, save only for the rhythmic drip of the coffee pot.

“Well, I better go,” Kym murmured. "Patrol, and all that.” She tipped Lila a salute. “Enjoy your coffee.”

Lila nodded, watching her retreat down the hallway. And then she blinked down at her coffee, irrationally fearful it might evaporate into thin air.

It was only during her lunch break hours later that she realized he never made himself a cup.

**Author's Note:**

> Instagram: @rabbitthearted


End file.
